Brass belaying pin help?

[rschissler]

Does anyone have any good pictures of brass belaying pins that are 8mm or 5/16", or any that you highly recommend?  I've seen pictures of ones from Billings Boats and Model Shipways that have been less than perfect, so I'm thinking of Amati or Bluejacket pins now.

 

Pictures from retailers and manufacturers sites have been pretty worthless, as far as I'm concerned.  I don't know why they can't show a picture of the actual item, since they aren't consistent.  I've seen nicely shaped pins in other sizes, but I've found that they can change drastically when going up or down in size. 

 

Thanks,

Randy

Edited January 11, 2016 by rschissler

[MrBlueJacket]

Here you go

 

[Nirvana]

Randy,

If you have a Dremel with a chuck, you can make your own belaying pins.

​I tried it and it's not that hard.

Otherwise I would recommend the Bluejackets.

[rschissler]

Nirvana:  Thanks, but I want them to be consistent.  I tried modifying wood belaying pins that were 8mm, similarly to what you described,  but while some looked good, some were not.  And when you need over 30 of them it becomes quite an effort.

[EdT]

Check my Young America posts or Remco's Kingfisher post on turned wheel spindles for a method.

 

Ed

[rschissler]

Here's my answer to my inquiry about brass belaying pins:

 

So, once I decided to have belaying pins, my next dilemma was what to use for belaying pins.  The kit came with 8mm wood ones, and the picture below shows an example of one on them on the far left.  You can see that it doesn't look much like  a belaying pin should look.  While I've seen larger wood belaying pins that looked decent, the 8mm ones just don't cut it.  I tried modifying the wood ones, but couldn't get them consistent for such a small size.  So, it seemed like I would have to go with brass ones.  I had previously seen some 8mm brass pins from Model Shipways, and Billings boats, but I didn't like the shapes of them, so decided not to use them either. 

 

The second pin in the picture is a 5/16" one that I purchased from Bluejacket.  You can see that the top looks like it has been chopped off.  While the overall shape looks pretty good, I decided not to use these.

 

The third pin in the picture is an 8mm one from Amati.  While the shape of these aren't perfect either, I thought they looked the best, so that's what I've decided to use.

 

The fourth pin in the picture is an Amati pin that has been colored to hopefully look more like wood than brass and metal.

Edited February 28, 2016 by rschissler

[Altduck]

Looking at your final version, the Amati brass pin, it looks like the shank must be less than 1mm (scaling it on the screen it's maybe 0.8mm), pretty small and structurally weak for tying anything to.  I assume that's why the wood ones are a bit on the chubby side.

[Altduck]

I meant to say it'd be weak if made of wood; brass should be just fine.

 

Richard

[rschissler]

Richard:  Thanks for clearing that up.  The brass shank is .85mm